Viking Tomorrow

Summary

International bestselling authors Jeremy Robinson and Kane Gilmour imagine a world that has survived multiple apocalyptic events, mixing the savagery of the History Channel’s Vikings with the frenetic chase scenes of Mad Max, resulting in a high-octane battle raging across Europe with the fate of humanity at stake.The world is barely holding on. A century after a series of apocalyptic events, humanity is struggling to survive. In the frigid north of Europe, living as their ancient Viking ancestors once did, the last tattered remnants of humankind have become barren. No new live births have occurred in over a decade. When the remaining population dies, the human race will end. But one man of the old sciences has found a way.When a call goes out to the greatest fighters in the North, men capable of surviving a long journey and crushing any obstacle in their path, a young female berserker named Val takes up the challenge. With her eyes hidden behind red-lens goggles, she violently proves her worth, seizes control of a small band of fellow berserkers, and determines to claim her prize: the first glimmer of hope for a tomorrow.Scavenging technology from the old world and the time before the annihilation, the group sets out south, marking the beginning of the Third Age of the Vikings. Almost immediately they are set upon by challenges the likes of which none of them have seen before. Mutated creatures and dangerous landscapes abound, while Val must prove her worth as a leader and keep her unruly men in line.Traveling deep into the ruined wastes of Europe, the Vikings find themselves pursued by enemies determined to stop them at all costs. Attacked from without and betrayed from within, Val fights for the future, and if she fails, humanity fails along with her.

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Viking Tomorrow - Jeremy Robinson

Prologue

The girl saw her pale face reflected in the creature’s slick eyes. She smiled at the sight, and then giggled. The harbor seal, a foot longer than the girl was tall, grunted and huffed with appreciation, then it nuzzled closer to her, as it had done all week when they met by the hole in the ice.

The young girl’s mother, a broad, powerful woman, sat nearby on a log. She was repairing a shirt with a needle and thread, as the girl played with the seals. At only six years old, the girl could swim nearly as well as the creatures that emerged from the hole each afternoon to laze in the scant Arctic sun. Her mother wasn’t worried about her.

There were usually three or four seals, and the girl loved to play with them. She had begged her mother to create a fur hood she could wear, so she would better resemble the sleek-skinned animals. It had taken some time, but eventually her mother had presented her with a smooth, brown, full-body garment. She rarely took it off now. It was skin tight, and kept the girl’s long blonde hair out of her face, but it wasn’t the warmest article of clothing she owned. Still, she would happily shiver if it meant playing with her friends.

Unlike many other creatures the girl had seen, these seals were unaffected by sickness or deformities. Her parents explained that most of the animals had been changed by the wars and disasters of the old times. The girl didn’t know much about those times, but as long as the seals had only one head each and no scary fangs or claws, she was fine with them.

The most daring seal—the girl had named him Jostein—hooted with pleasure that his new human friend was once again on the ice. While the others would come close and scamper around her, Jostein was the only seal that would touch her or allow himself to be touched.

Mama, the girl said, can I swim with Jostein?

Wait, her mother said, the woman’s voice unusually terse and devoid of humor.

The girl turned to see her mother’s face was drawn. She was squinting back at the shore.

The girl whipped her head around toward their home, a small two-bedroom wooden hut on the shore of the frozen bay. Her father was chopping timber with a wood-handled ax, as two men arrived on vehicles the girl had never seen before. The machines were longer than a man, with skis on the front end and treads at the rear. The sound of the vehicles buzzed out across the iced-over sea, reaching her ears only after the men had arrived at her family’s log pile.

Wait, her mother hissed in a whisper.

A sudden dread filled the girl. She did not know what the problem was—most of the visitors they had, though infrequent, were welcomed heartily. She determined to stay still and alert, until her mother told her otherwise. At her side, Jostein lifted his head and peered toward the house. The girl knew his limited surface eyesight was not up to the task, but his keen hearing and sense of smell had detected the vehicles’ arrival before she had.

The two strangers dismounted their mechanical steeds and pulled long swords from their belts. The men moved with purpose toward her father, who was now brandishing his woodcutting ax like a weapon.

Into the water, her mother urged her. Get in and go under with your friends. Stay under as long as you can, and then stay under longer. The woman started running toward the shore, her mending dropped on the snow-crusted ice.

The girl turned her head toward the two-foot-wide hole cut into the surface, its black water already disturbed by the harbor seals, who had detected trouble and slid into the hole, nose first, with hardly a ripple. The only sound was their bellies scraping across the ice. Jostein waited for her, looking back and barking softly.

She turned toward the home just once more. The two men swung their blades at her father. An arc of brilliant crimson shot up and over their heads.

Her heart seized as a sword struck her father again. Her mother was still running for the shore, screaming.

The girl turned back to the hole and, like the seals, slid in head first.

The shock of the cold water was like being slammed in the chest with a log. There was hardly enough light to see, but she spotted the dark shadows of seals swimming around her. The cold permeated her thin seal-skin hood. Her muscles felt tight and unfamiliar as she tried to swim while blocking the vision of her father’s blood from her mind’s eye.

She turned upward toward the deep hole. The ice was over a foot thick. As she looked up at the circle of blue sky beyond it, Jostein slipped into the hole from above, blocking out the light with his bulk. He plunged into the water, and immediately glided to the girl, winding his body around her like a snake. She knew he was smart enough to understand the danger. He was being protective.

The blackness around her did not scare the girl at all, but the terror of seeing the men attacking her father, and the fear of what they might do to her mother, filled her small mind. She had no fears for herself. She did not think the men would come out to the ice for her, and she was wearing her seal costume anyway. If they had even looked out across the ice and seen her mother, they most likely would have thought the girl was one of the seals.

She treaded in place under the water, her head just feet beneath the hole in the ice. If the men came and looked into the water, they would see black and the reflection of the porcelain blue sky above them. Nothing more. But she would be able to see them.

If they came soon.

Her mother had told her to stay under as long as she could, but she was running out of air now. It had been over three minutes. She could usually hold her breath for three to four minutes, but the last part always hurt her chest. When her circular view of the sky started to dim at the edges, she would have to emerge. For now, she waited, her arms tired and flapping slowly to keep her from sinking.

Jostein swam around her still, nuzzling her gently. She could tell he was worried. The other seals had already fled. He stopped in front of her, looking her in the eyes. He looks sad, she thought. Then he turned and swam away.

Her lungs burned.

She was alone.

The brutal cold constricted her muscles, and she knew she didn’t have long before a vicious cramp would set in.

She had to have air.

The girl moved up slowly, and tilted her head backward, so her lips and nose would be the first—and only—things that surfaced. As soon as she felt the frigid air on her mouth, she exhaled the last air in her chest and gulped in several fresh lungfuls. Her face was still a foot lower than the surface of the ice, hidden from the view of anyone on shore.

But her curiosity and fear got the better of her. She reached up, grabbed the smooth edge of the ice, and pulled herself up.

She wished she hadn’t. Her young eyes took in the sight instantly, and she dropped back down into the icy water.

The men were leaving on their strange vehicles. The house was on fire. Her father’s body was strewn on the ice in a spreading lake of blood. And her mother was tied over the back of one of the vehicles, like a sack of grain. Her long blonde hair was dirty and covered in blood, as it dragged on the ground.

The girl was young. She did not understand what the men wanted her mother for, but she understood that the woman would be dead soon, if she wasn’t already.

The girl was alone now.

She waited in the water, her head out and breathing the brittle air in sharp short bursts, her nose smelling the smoke from her burning home. She counted in her head, focusing on the numbers’ rhythm, trying to block out the fear and the terror, the images of blood and fire.

When she had been in the water an extra four minutes, she finally grabbed the lip of the ice and hauled herself out. The water was cold, but the frigid air chilled her worse. She flopped up out of the hole onto the ice, and lay on her back, her eyes tightly squinched shut against the cold air on her face. Her whole body shivered, and her teeth chattered. Her seal hood had come loose from her head, and her sopping wet blonde hair now framed her face. She knew she needed to get up soon, or it would freeze to the ice.

I am only six, she thought. How can I survive? What can I do?

She knew she needed warmth. Her head lolled to the left and she saw the flames where her house had been were already dying down, the spot instead choked with a thick, billowing, black smoke column that climbed into the sky and spread over the sea.

Where can I find warmth?

She also knew she would need food. And shelter. With the house gone, all three of those things were gone.

I will die here.

She closed her eyes again. Then she heard a noise that made all of the terror of the afternoon pale in comparison to the sensation that flooded through her now.

It was a loud, deep grunt. And it was close.

Summoning a reserve of energy she didn’t know she had, the girl sat up, flipped and rolled into a crouch, one hand steadying herself on the ice, while the other spread out for balance.

A polar bear. And close.

Very close.

No doubt drawn by the scent of smoke.

The creature was no more than a few feet away, its head lowered toward the ice, its eyes locked onto hers. Its white fur had matted, yellow patches. In a few places, the fur was missing entirely, revealing black crusted skin.

The beast was huge, probably longer than her house had been wide—nine or ten feet. It had an extra hind leg, dangling out of its left flank, as if the limb contained no bones. Indeed, as she looked closer, she saw that the meaty appendage did not reach all the way to the ice, but hung limp and floppy. The other two hind legs were normal sized and powerful, although the leg supporting the unwanted twin had a knee that looked like it bent sideways. The front legs rested on the ice, the creature’s thick, black claws longer than the girl’s hands plus half the length of her forearms. The dark claws glistened as they lay on the ice. She noted that the creature’s rear claws had sunken into the ice, which would give it traction when it lunged for her.

She stayed perfectly still, watching the creature as it watched her. The beast’s odor was heavy and thick, and there was something under it, like the scent of spoiled food. She knew the bear saw her as a seal of some kind, because of her outfit, but she wasn’t acting like a seal. That was probably the only reason the bear had not attacked and eaten her yet.

As she watched, the beast pulled one front paw backward slightly, the tips of the claws driving into the ice for additional purchase.

It was going to strike out.

She stood there shivering, and eyed the bear’s thick fur. She looked at the beast’s bulk, all sinew and muscles, and at the sheer size of the thing. As big as a house.

Warmth.

Food.

Shelter.

She slid her free hand back to the bone-handled knife on her hip.

The bear roared and lunged forward, but to its surprise, the girl also roared, and pulled out her own claw, running just as fast for the beast and leaping.

1

Ulrik stood in the wooden longboat’s bow, staring at the decomposing metal remains of the once-tall, proud buildings in the distance. The structures had housed dozens of people, but now they were little more than canted skeletal reminders of an age gone by, populated by birds and creeping vines, and no longer by man. As his men paddled the ship into the crowded harbor, he lowered his eyes and saw several boats similar to his, and many groups of men armed with axes and shields, wearing leather and furs.

All had heard the same call from the ruined city of Stavanger that Ulrik had heard: there was an imminent threat to all the peoples of the North, and the greatest fighters were needed for an urgent task. Ulrik was well known throughout the region surrounding the river town of Drammen. The people there had selected him to take the perilous journey around the coast to Stavanger, to find out what needed to be done.

The letter had said to arrive by the solstice, or it would be too late.

Ulrik and his men had nearly not arrived at all, thanks to a pitched battle with a vicious band of marauders near the rocky islets of Kristiansand. He’d lost two men on the journey, and now he was ready for some answers. Whatever this threat was, he was eager to sink his ax into its skull.

Looking around the bustling harbor as the boat glided toward a rickety wooden pier, Ulrik recognized several fighters of repute. One was a man named Trond, who was roughly the size of an elk. His flowing golden beard was braided and stained with dyes. He carried a double-sided broad ax. Ulrik had heard stories of Trond cleaving men in two with a single sweep of that gigantic blade.

He also saw men whose names he couldn’t recall, but with whom he knew he’d shared a battlefield in the past. There were many he did not know—neither from experience nor from tales told around tall glasses of frothy beer. He realized they must have come from much farther than he had, and he wondered how far out the message had been sent. Was the Jarl of Stavanger recruiting Swedes? Finns? The crazed, mutated warriors of Rus?

As he stepped off the boat and strode down the pier, he overheard conversations around him, and all were asking the same unanswered questions about what this great peril might be. Ulrik knew better than to ask. No one here had the answers. Only the Jarl would know, and he wasn’t out on the docks to greet the arriving fighters. There would be a feast first, and then, when most of the men around him were falling-down drunk, the Jarl would explain. Ulrik knew better than to get excited about it now, on the docks. But unlike the others, he wasn’t about to wait until after sunset for his answers.

He strode down the wooden walkway until he was on the beach, and his boots kicked water-washed pebbles. Those who knew him or had heard of him stepped out of his way. While everyone else was milling around, he looked like a man with a purpose. A few did not know him—not even by reputation—and two of them made the mistake of staying in his way. The first was a skinny man in tight brown leather. Ulrik walked straight into the man, bowling him over, and sending the stranger onto his ass in the wet sand. Ulrik kept walking, despite the complaints and curses hurled at his back. The second man, further up the beach, stayed in Ulrik’s path intentionally, a hand out to slow or stop him.

Ulrik met the man’s gaze and saw no threat in it. Move or be moved, he called to the man.

Ulrik the Fearless, well met. I do not plan to try to stop you, the man said. He had short, greasy blond hair, slicked back on his head, and an unkempt beard that covered a weak chin. Still, Ulrik noted the man’s corded, muscular arms and his broad chest. At his side he wore a long, straight sword. His arms and legs were covered in a scarred, brown leather armor, and across his chest was a dented metal plate decorated with a painted red hammer—the claw-ended kind of hammer used to pound in nails. I merely want to join you in seeking answers. My name is Morten.

Morten the Hammer? Ulrik asked, recognizing the symbol and the name. He’d heard tales of the man from Hammerfest, a nearly empty city of frozen ruins up in Lapland. Tales Ulrik didn’t like. Stories of the men Morten had brutalized and the women he’d had his way with. Most of the stories involved the Laplander outwitting his foes, instead of overpowering them. Often through trickery or betrayal. Many of them were undoubtedly bluster and legend, but there was probably some truth in them.

You are heading to see the Jarl now? Morten asked.

I lost men on this voyage, was all Ulrik said, and he took a step further toward the Jarl’s longhall.

Morten again thrust his hand out, this time toward Ulrik’s chest. It was enough, after a lengthy voyage, losing two friends and missing even more meals.

Ulrik, a few inches taller than Morten, and broader, with fists like frozen slabs of reindeer, stepped closer to the Laplander, whose hand made contact with Ulrik’s chestplate. Another step forced the man’s loosely extended arm back and bent it at the elbow. Then Ulrik slammed his forehead into the bridge of Morten’s nose. Blood splattered both men in the face, splashing into their eyes.

Morten staggered backward from the blow, but his hand was already moving to a black-handled knife on his belt.

Ulrik spun and cocked his arm. He came around in a full circle, his pointed elbow mashing into Morten’s ear, and knocking the man sideways to the ground.

Someone screamed out a blood-curdling battle cry from behind him, and Ulrik heard the tell-tale scuffle of leather boots on the pebbled ground.

He ducked low, just as a man soared over him. The man had tried to tackle Ulrik, and as his form sprawled to the ground several feet behind Morten’s body, Ulrik recognized him as the first man he had hit. Another damned Laplander. These two have no honor.

Morten stirred on the ground, and since he was down there anyway, Ulrik hammered a fist into the man’s face. The blow knocked Morten down and out of the fight, and made a worse mess of the man’s already bloodied nose.

Before Ulrik could scramble forward to go after the man who had attempted to attack him from behind, he was bumped from the side by yet another man, this one a huge moving wall of flesh and furs—only his legs and arms were bare. Ulrik lost his balance and toppled over onto the ground. The wall of flesh was mighty Trond, who now picked up the Laplander who had attacked from behind like a coward. Trond hefted the smaller man’s body and threw him up the beach as Ulrik watched, stunned at the ox’s strength. Arms and legs flailed until the small man smashed to earth right where the sand and pebbles met long patches of scrub grass.

Ulrik staggered to his feet and turned his eyes back to Morten. The greasy man was awake and clambering to his feet, spitting a thick phlegmy wad of blood to the ground, while pulling his longsword from its brown scabbard.

Ulrik pulled the long handled ax from its leather loop on his belt, and yanked his cracked wooden shield off his back, gripping the curled, well-worn, leather arm straps with his left hand.

Morten’s blue eyes faltered for a second, glancing back at the bustling harbor.

It was in that split second that Ulrik processed the sounds around him. Men were yelling and screaming. Some were shouting oaths, and others were promising death.

Knowing it was foolish to take his eyes off his opponent for even a second, Ulrik still did it. He let his eyes dart back to the harbor.

In the span of a few seconds, the marshy beach had erupted into a full scale battle. Turning back to Morten as the man stalked forward, Ulrik slammed the head of his ax against the metal dome on the center of his battered shield. It made a deep, satisfying clang.

2

Ax versus sword. Metal versus wood and bone. All washed in sprays of blood and spittle. If not for all the screaming, Ulrik would have thought the assembled Northmen were enjoying themselves. Battle rang all around him, but he kept his focus on the Laplander.

Morten lunged with the sword point first, keeping his distance. Ulrik easily parried the strike with the head of his ax. Despite not liking the stories he had heard about the Laplander, he knew better than to trust in only stories when it came to the character of a man, and it seemed Morten’s heart wasn’t really in the attack. Ulrik had no desire to actually hurt the man, but if the fight went on for long, he would have no problems with further embarrassing him.

Morten’s eyes darted to the other battles around the beach, while Ulrik had seen all he needed to. He would keep his gaze fixed on his opponent, now that the weapons had been drawn.

Morten thrust out half-heartedly again, and Ulrik was about to parry, when the Laplander’s eyes darted again, and he yelled, Look out!

Not sure whether it was a ploy on the part of the man who was renowned to be a backstabber, Ulrik dove left instead of down, keeping his eyes on Morten and bringing his ax up at the same time, in case the man pressed the attack. Instead, Morten directed his attention at a new opponent. His sword flashed up just in time to stop a thin man swinging two axes down where Ulrik had been, just seconds before.

Ulrik rolled in the sand and came up in a stance at the side of Morten, just as another man came rushing in, shield first, like a human battering ram. With short dark hair and pure murder in his ice chip eyes, Ulrik categorized this man as the larger threat. Plus, the man’s shield was coming straight for Ulrik’s midsection. He steeled himself for the hit, but it still lifted him off the ground. The man kept running, and Ulrik lifted his ax handle high, then struck the maniacal runner on the top of his head.

The man dropped like a stone, and Ulrik landed on his feet, several yards further up the beach. He was about to rush back into the fray when he spotted Morten and the slim man Trond had thrown fighting side by side now, against three other men. At first the two Laplanders seemed outnumbered, but as Ulrik watched, he realized the two knew each other, and they fought side by side or back to back, as if they were born to it. The smaller man fought with twin hand axes, while Morten had pulled out a knife to go with his sword.

They are talented, Ulrik observed.

Closer to the harbor, Trond was barreling through men like an unstoppable storm, but as Ulrik watched, he noticed the giant man was only attacking the most aggressive and bloodthirsty of the combatants. Often with non-lethal head-butts or punches. At first look, Trond appeared out of control, but on closer inspection Ulrik saw he was picking his targets.

Then something unfortunate happened that changed the tide of the battle.

A man with a short sword took a serious swing at Trond’s head, missing the larger man’s neck, but cleaving off his beard with the deadly swing.

Oh, you stupid stack of testicles, Ulrik thought.

And then Trond, a man of strength unbridled and with a composure to be appreciated, went berserk.

He rushed the smaller man, swatting his sword aside before grabbing the man’s skull between two massive hands and simply crushing it into a pulpy mess. Then Trond ran for the next nearest man and crushed him with a blood-drenched, meaty fist, before kicking at another and biting at a third.

As Trond lost touch with reality, all around him men detected that the brawl had become a serious killing field, and they either upped their efforts or backed off and away to the fringes of the fight—or like Trond, they lost their minds, falling into snarling, thrashing berserker rages.

Ulrik, too, could fall into a desperate, swinging rage, pummeling his enemies into oblivion. But he was nowhere near that angry today, and he saw no reason to fight these men at all. They had all come together for a common cause. He needed some way to calm the melee, but he saw no way to do it without risking his life.

To his side, Morten and his ally had knocked out their foes, the three men on the ground—two of them bleeding from several small and inconsequential stab wounds. The two victors were watching the out-of-control fight that was threatening to leave many dead or injured.

Odin’s beard, Morten’s friend said. Look at that. He pointed past the fracas to the pier, where a woman had just shoved a man off the wooden walkway and into the water. Do you know who that is, Morten?

Morten made no reply as the two fell silent, watching the woman.

She had long blonde hair and wore goggles with red lenses on her face. Under the thick goggles was a spread of makeup resembling a Raven’s outstretched wings, only the ink was red—or else it was blood. Either was possible. She wore black leather with additional studded armored pads on one leg and the opposing shoulder. A long-handled ax hung by her side, and she marched confidently off the pier, and right into the thickest part of the fighting.

The woman jabbed upward with her left elbow as a man approached her. She had to leap slightly off her feet for the elbow to connect with the man’s jaw, but the strike was so lightning fast, that the much smaller woman managed to snap the man’s head backward. Before he even started to fall, she had landed back on the soles of her black boots and spun. Her high kick connected with another man’s ear, sending him off to the side and into three other brawlers, knocking them all off balance, as they crumpled into the wet sand.

The woman took two more steps before a man with an ax and a beard that flowed to his waist rushed her. She sidestepped his lunge, turning and delivering the bottom of her fist to the back of the man’s neck with such force and speed that Ulrik could see the man’s neck bend downward as his head snapped back toward his own shoulder blades.

Broken, he thought.

The woman continued forward. When the fighting wasn’t close enough to reach her, she did not pursue it. Ulrik realized she wasn’t entering the fray—she was merely passing through it. And if anyone got in her way, she was putting them down. Brutally.

Morten gave voice to Ulrik’s thoughts. She is a very calm fighter.

Then a man with a beard in long braids with silver metal cones at the tips punched the woman in the side of the head, his fist slipping past her defenses. She staggered slightly to the side, and quicker than Ulrik could see, she drew a knife and slashed upward as she fell away from the man. As her arm swooped away from the man’s head, a thin line of blood from the man’s slit throat trailed the dark metal in her hand. And the woman, recovering her stance, launched herself into the fight, her own berserker rage consuming her as she began to drop larger fighters all around her.

Ulrik watched in awe, thinking the woman would take down every man foolish enough to confront her whirling, striking form, until Trond, still lost in his own bloodlust, headed straight for her.

3

It is a wonder we have made it this far, Halvard thought.

He stood with Jarl Gregers on the second story of one of the few skeletal buildings in town to remain roughly vertical. Most of the others had toppled, crumbled or at least fallen over to a forty-five degree angle, decades before he had been born. And at fifty-two, he was an old man by humanity’s current standards. Old enough to be glad he wasn’t down below in the melee.

From his perch, a hundred yards farther inland than where the bulk of the fighting was taking place, he thanked the gods he was too old to fight, and beseeched them to let his plan succeed. Despite his earlier dark thought, he knew the human race had redeeming qualities and was worth saving.

Halvard turned to the Jarl, a man of sixty, with a paunch belly earned from far too many years of drinking, after his own fighting years were done. The man had clawed and scrabbled his way to the top of the region’s toughest men—often over their cracked skulls.

The Jarl leered at the fight, clearly missing the old days. A few inches shorter than Halvard, the man knew little of science or the history of the world, as Halvard did, but he appreciated a good fight.

Now this is more like it, the Jarl said.

Halvard rolled his eyes skyward and thought, Odin, I may have been too hasty with that ‘redeeming qualities’ thought.

Look at them, Halvard. Bloody good fighters, all of them.

As the Jarl leaned against the rusted railing to get a better look at the scrambling fight below them, Halvard saw a large man from Oslo called Trond throw a smaller man to the beach. A closer look revealed the thrown man to be a Laplander named Oskar.

That would mean... Halvard scanned the fight, and there at the edge of it he saw Morten the Hammer. Another Laplander. They were cousins. Where the one went, the other was always close by. Morten’s opponent darted left as a man attacked from behind. Halvard recognized Ulrik the Fearless, and he was glad the man had made the journey. Travel by sea